Among the guests were Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice, and Beatrice’s boyfriend, Virgin Galactic businessman Dave Clark. Beatrice declined to speak to the press, explaining to VF Daily, “I’m not very good at on-the-spot interviews, but I love Charity: Water. They’re doing an amazing job.”

Also attending was director Jon Chu, whose documentary, Justin Bieber’s Believe, opens on Christmas Day. Chu told VF Daily what we can expect to see in the film, and how Bieber has matured—and changed—since the last documentary, 2011’s Never Say Never. He says the picture is a warts-and-all look at the sides of Bieber that we don’t see on Instagram, as well as the tabloid moments that we know so well. Highlights from our chat:

VF Daily: What was it like directing the second Justin Bieber documentary?

Jon Chu: You know, I love Justin. He’s a good kid, he’s growing up, and he’s changing. Never Say Never did so well in the theaters, and we didn’t want to try to do the same thing, because there’s not a lot of story beyond his fairy-tale story. But this year was such an interesting year for him. Our movie is about transition; our movie is about growing up. So it was cool to just be around him and see the truth between what he experiences every day and what’s reported on. And not in a defensive way, because we don’t try to do that, but really just him as a human being. You get to see the mistakes he makes, but he’s not the horrible person you think he is, and he’s not the perfect person he thinks he is. He’s just a human like all of us.

How has he changed since you did Never Say Never to this one? Just in your observations?

He was innocent before. I think from then till now, he’s been burned a couple times, he’s been up and down a couple times, but you know what stays consistent is he loves music. He writes every day of his life, and that’s what people don’t know. And it’s not the music you hear on the radio, it’s the stuff he has all on his computer. And to me, that’s never changed. I think music and his fans are almost his moral compass. When things start to veer away from that, he adjusts himself. What’s reported on him and all that stuff, that doesn’t really affect him.

Do you have any of those tabloid moments on film, like when he’s walking through an airport with his shirt off? Or even when he peed in the bucket?

Well, yeah, he did pee in a bucket. You know, we address the things that have to do with him, not incidents, so he talks about all those little things, and you get to see him sometimes laugh it off, sometimes admit it, like, “Yeah, I peed in a bucket. Oops.” And other times, where he’s, like, “No, no, no, they were yelling at me, and I wanted to punch him. And I got out of my car because I wanted to punch him.” And you get to see that true side of him, which I think you don’t really get to see a lot.